Comment by mbrumlow
2 months ago
A thought.
What if we have judged the healthiest of a society on the wrong metrics. And the right one is birth rate?
We might say things are bad for a society if it’s too dangerous or not enough food so the birth rate goes to near zero and as a result it dies.
How is a society that has people being too busy or occupied with other task that neglects reproducing a better society than the latter?
Obvious too much of a birth rate is bad, but too little could also be a sign of an unhealthy environment.
Basically what you’re saying is that the healthiest society is the one whose population is growing the fastest?
I would think life expectancy would be a better measure of a healthy vs unhealthy environment.
You're talking about individual health. Regardless of what specifically makes a society healthy, a necessary condition is that it doesn't die out.
A society with a 120 year life expectancy and 0 birth rate isn't healthy.
A society with 20 life expectancy and 6 birth rate is unhealthy but for different reasons.
It’s pretty easy to find high birth rate countries with low life expectancy.
While it’s much more difficult to find countries with high life expectancy with low birth rates (assuming we define “low” as any birth rate lower than necessary for the society to not die out)
I agree with you the 2 need to be balanced, but I assume any society with high life expectancy would also have a sustainable birth rate.
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